He said 50% more Asians died of heart disease in the UK, compared with other groups. Also, the onset of such disease was much earlier.

Mr Wood added: "I hope Dil Save and the mobile cardiac scanner will encourage greater awareness of the dangers of heart disease and the need for early, pre-emptive testing, not just in Asian communities - where there is a particularly acute problem - but across the whole community."

The scanner has already toured the country, promoting pre-emptive action through early testing. Dil Save is set to significantly expand this work.

It will be based at Ealing Hospital, London, but will travel to other areas of the country every two or three months.

The scanner was developed more than 10 years ago and became the world's first mobile cardiac magnetic resonance scanner.